


infinitesimal

by astralscrivener



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Canon Related, Established Relationship, Existential Crisis, Hurt/Comfort, I Don't Even Know, I Wrote This Instead of Sleeping, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-06
Updated: 2019-03-06
Packaged: 2019-11-12 18:29:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,368
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18016097
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/astralscrivener/pseuds/astralscrivener
Summary: Will the universe care?Will the universe care about any of what they’re doing now?or, lance has an existential crisis.





	infinitesimal

**Author's Note:**

  * For [QueenEevee](https://archiveofourown.org/users/QueenEevee/gifts).



> so
> 
> nicole sent me [a thing](http://joshworth.com/dev/pixelspace/pixelspace_solarsystem.html) and told me to use the arrows instead of scrolling all the way through, but instead i spent a half hour scrolling all the way through
> 
> i think i almost cried
> 
> then i had an existential crisis
> 
> then my brain jumped to its usual "you could klance this" so i did

                _You are here._

                The projection of the universe inside of the bridge is crowded and alive with planets and stars and space matter, all glowing blue around Lance, surrounding him like old friends. They’re squished in and comforting, and nothing like the unending darkness out the window, the same unending darkness Lance can’t help but glance back at, the same unending darkness that wraps a hand around his lungs and squeezes.

                With a sharp gasp Lance lets the projections wink out and the bridge fall into darkness, because that’s all they are: _projections_ , no more tangible than the emptiness stretching out beyond the castleship. Lance collapses to his knees and both hands fall against the glass of the window as he stares out, tries to find something: a shred of light, another passing ship, a rogue asteroid, _anything_.

                Nothing.

                His own reflection, tear-streaked cheeks and purple smudges and red-rimmed eyes and mussed hair, stares back.

                _You are here._

                And what does _here_ matter, in the grand scheme of the universe? Is _here_ really relevant when he doesn’t know where that is, and there’s not a thing out there to orient himself with? Does _here_ matter in the midst of infinity, when he’s a speck inside of a speck in a world of specks? How many of those specks actually make a difference? Will the universe notice when his speck has broken down into smaller and smaller specks until they’re gone?

                Will the universe care?

                Will the universe care about any of what they’re doing now?

                The universe has existed for an amount of time Lance’s brain can’t comprehend, because how do you comprehend _endlessness?_ How do you comprehend that something never really began, but just always was, and always will be?

                The universe was here long before the Galra, long before the Alteans, long before himself, long before _life_...and when they go, when the dust has settled and the fighting’s ended, and one side or another has come out victorious, the universe will go on. Lifetimes will pass and the war will be forgotten, eventually, and the universe will just. Keep. Going.

                A sob bubbles up in Lance’s chest and spills over his lips as he turns his back on the window and slides down against it, and draws his knees up to his chest and buries his face in his arms. It only muffles his sounds slightly, but it’s already too late.

                The door to the bridge hisses open, and Lance’s head snaps up, another sob escaping him. With blurry eyes, tired eyes, and the fact that he’s so far away, Lance can’t tell who the hall light is silhouetting—just for a moment. Then they take one step and Lance knows, and can’t bring himself to snap, to quip, to do anything to salvage his dignity.

                It’s not like he’d ever need to, though.

                “Lance?”

                There’s a softness to this voice, and Lance never hears it other than when they’re together, a softness reserved _for him_ , and it’s—

                Strange.

                Strange, because the universe will overlook it; another blip on the unceasing timeline of space; but then again, how does time really work? Lance was taught it was a line, for so many years of his life, and then Physics came along and said, _no, time’s not really like that,_ because it isn’t; time warps and bends and it’s never really straight, especially when the furthest reaches of the great wide nowhere are concerned.

                This is something that will be lost to the sands, churning ocean, whatever his mind wants to equate it to, it still hasn’t decided; it just knows that this is temporary and so unimportant in the grand scheme of things, so it’s weird that Keith—he has—he has a _Lance voice._

                In a universe both teeming with life and so cold and dark and empty, it’s a miracle, really, that he’s been granted this thing, been granted _Keith_ , who approaches and crouches down in front of him, forearms braced against his knees as he cocks his head and looks at Lance, and his hair falls to the side, some falling into his eyes, eyes more vibrant than the world beyond the windows now.

                _We’re all made of the same cosmic dust._

                Funnily enough, it was Keith who said it.

                And Lance looks up and he can’t speak; he gets lost, studying this manifestation of stardust in front of him. He’s long equated Keith’s eyes to swirling galaxies, and that’s just it, isn’t it? His atoms, his molecules are every speck of dust, every planet and star, in the tiny universe that makes up Keith, the galaxies in his eyes and the nebulae of the unhealed bruises from training and the flush on his cheeks, rough and inadvertent constellations mapped by faint white scars, pod-healed, pod-cold.

                Lance wonders what moments Keith has deemed insignificant. What moments he himself has deemed insignificant. Gnats, ants—Lance swats at them or avoids them and carries on with his day, and hasn’t the universe done the same to him? Hasn’t it swatted at him with every Galra ship and every dangerous mission it’s hurled into his path, avoided him when he needed—

                He needed—

                Lance’s throat closes again and he screws his eyes shut, and falls forward into the arms that are suddenly open for him. Hands card through his hair, and soothingly, he’s shushed as he presses his face into the slope of Keith’s neck, and his hands clutch at the back of Keith’s shirt, ball it up in his fists.

                “Lance, Lance, hey, it’s alright,” Keith whispers. “It’s okay. I’ve got you.”

                _It’s okay, I’ve got you._

                Lance has heard it so often, too often, and another cry lodges in a lump in his throat, because it’s both comforting and damning; damning, because he knows the universe has abandoned him yet again, because the universe doesn’t care and doesn’t need to care if he lives or he dies; because the Galra have abandoned him, given up, deemed him already lost or not worthy enough to make sure he’s lost; because everyone else was too caught up in their own parts of the mission, too loud to hear him and too busy to take notice.

                Comforting.

                Comforting because maybe the stars have written off his existence before he ever came into being, maybe the planets’ll keep turning whether he’s here or gone, maybe no one will know the name Lance McClain ten years or a hundred years or a thousand years down the line, but Keith fights for him now. Knows him _now._ Repeats his name in an effort to get his attention and keep him anchored, instead of letting him be blasted into oblivion.

                _“Lance! Move!”_

                “Lance, I’m here, we’re okay.”

                They say some loves are star-crossed; fates intertwine and will be abruptly severed at any moment. And it’s just like Lance, to know that, to have grown up with tragedies about lovers in the worst possible circumstances, and then let himself fall in love in the middle of a war anyway. For all he knows his stars could be crossed to hell and back.

                But the stars he gazes into now, the stars he gazes into when he draws back—they say differently. They’re stars that were never one for rules or sticking to the script; they’re stars that chose to shine their light on him, of all things; they’re stars writing out their own stories, connecting constellations the universe isn’t allowed to touch.

                The universe envelopes him twice.

                The first universe flings him onto a big black blanket; as lint, as dust, as that one annoying piece of hair it takes twelve tries to get rid of. The second wraps a strong pair of arms around him and draws him into a more comfortable embrace. The second hums as Lance’s ear falls against its chest and hears the beating of its cosmic wind.

                In the grand scheme of the first, Lance is nothing.

                In the grand scheme of the second, he likes to think he’s the center—that’s what he’s been told, anyway.

                A speck, versus the biggest star, and Lance sniffles, swallows down another cry, and lets his light shine through.

**Author's Note:**

> it's kinda abstract so if anything's vague congrats it's up to ur interpretation now


End file.
